The Beginning of a War Without End
by trufflemores
Summary: And the beginning of a new series, exploring the relationship between Barry and Eobard across the centuries. Here, we visit the year 2165, when Eobard is 14, and Elias Darwin Thawne is dead.


"You're him." A fourteen-year-old Eobard inches closer to his prize, staring at the man trapped under the net. The grass is damp with the rain still dappling the field; the manor at their backs is quiet and unlit. "You're … _The Flash_."

"You don't want to do this," The Flash tells him in a low tone. He sounds old and powerful. It makes Eobard tense, but he levels his father's plasma gun at the Speed animal and holds his ground. "Let me go and no one gets hurt."

"It's too late." Eobard's voice rasps with excitement. "I caught you." Tone hardening, he adds, "I need you."

With a sigh, The Flash sits up. He glows blue around the edges, lightning straining outward. Eobard's hands begin to tremble, but he does not run. "What do you want?"

Emotion makes his voice shake: "I want him back."

The Flash frowns, brow drawn low. He still looks mythical, even seated: the muscles packed in the suit; the lean, comfortable crouch, like a tiger ready to pounce; those arresting golden eyes. "Want _who_ back?" he asks.

"My father." Eobard fires up the gun to its lowest setting. "I want Elias Darwin Thawne back."

"Elias." When The Flash intones the name, Eobard is reminded of older gods, commanding life from the earth. Eobard shivers. He half-expects his father to rise from the dead, to step forward and embrace him, to rebuke him for mistreating his father's greatest hero.

 _You said he could do anything_ , Eobard thinks, refusing to entertain the rising guilt that he has demeaned The Flash. If The Flash can be taken down, then Eobard should be honored to have that distinction. _I captured The Flash. What does that make me, but a king?_

"Elias died on January 9, 2165," The Flash recites, staring at him, unblinking. "He was forty-years-old. He left behind a wife and two children. You - Eobard - are the youngest."

Eobard presses his thumb against the trigger on his father's gun. "I know the story," he says harshly, and hates that there are tears forming in his eyes. He plows ahead, refusing to acknowledge the fear behind The Flash's unexpected knowledge of his own name. _How does he know me? How can he possibly know my name?_ "I read my father's obituary."

"I am sorry for your loss," The Flash says.

Rage sears Eobard's vision red. He barely holds himself back from striking The Flash. "I don't want an _apology_ ," he snaps, gun trembling in his hands. "I want you to _fix it_ , dammit. I know you can. Everyone knows you can!"

"Eobard-" The Flash grunts in pain when the plasma gun slices through him, folding in half for a moment. When he straightens, his eyes burn red. "Strike me again, and you will regret it."

It's a challenge he cannot refute: without breaking his stare with the world's most powerful metahuman, Eobard Thawne plants his feet, levels his gun, and fires right at The Flash's chest.

There's a moment when he can almost see the light bounce back before a knife of pain sinks into his own chest, throwing him backwards several feet. Gasping, he clutches his chest, wheezing in pain, gun forgotten on the ground. Still under the stolen power-dampener net, The Flash commands, "Breathe. It will pass."

"What - are - you?" Eobard gasps, hand spasming at his throat, desperate for air that won't come to his seizing chest.

"A man," The Flash replies simply, "who can't save your father."

"Yes you _can_ ," Eobard spits venomously, forcing himself to his knees so he can look at The Flash. He shakes from head-to-toe, but he still levels a glare at his father's hero in the grass, somehow greater and lesser than Eobard ever expected. "You can do _anything_."

"I can save Elias," The Flash says, again without blinking. It disarms, how little he blinks - how slowly his chest rises with each breath before falling with glacial subtlety. "But I can't save your father. He died on January 9, 2165. He's beyond my reach."

"Nothing is beyond your reach!" Eobard thunders, surging to his feet. He yanks the gun off the grass and points it at The Flash, heedless of the consequences. "You will do as I say or I will put you down!"

The Flash draws in a deep, sudden breath. It reminds Eobard of a statue coming to life. "There is a knowledge that no human being is meant to know," he explains before phasing through the net. Eobard startles so badly he falls back a step, hitting the ground hard, but The Flash does not pursue him. "A knowledge of other worlds and other universes that no human should carry," he rumbles, standing. At full height, he towers, approaching six-and-a-half feet, radiating lightning. Eobard stares at him, too awed to speak. _This is a god_. "But I know it. And I will share it with you. I could save ten thousand Eliases, and still I would never save your father. I am sorry, but there is truly nothing I can do. It is beyond my reach."

Slowly, Eobard pushes himself to his feet. He leaves the gun on the grass. The Flash looks down at him and inhales slowly. Eobard stares at him, overcome, unable to verbalize any of the emotions roaring through him. "You - you won't save him," he says, and hates that a tear finally spills down his cheek. Compensating, he shouts, "You liar!"

The Flash firms his jaw. "This can still lead nowhere. We can still part as strangers."

But Eobard can feel a rage burning through his veins like war, and lunges forward, fisting The Flash's suit. It's hot, almost hot enough to burn, but he doesn't let go, getting up in The Flash's face. "What kind of hero are you?" he shouts. "What kind of monster has this power and refuses to use it? _My father believed in you!_ He believed in what you could do!" He shoves The Flash back, and graciously, The Flash stumbles a little. But Eobard can see it is only a show; his posture barely shifts. He absorbs the blow without flinching. "Our world needs my father, and you would let it burn without him!"

"You are your father's son," The Flash tells him, keeping his distance. Tears streak down Eobard's face, but he does not touch them, letting the rain extinguish them. " _You_ can save it, Eobard."

"Don't say my name," he snaps. "You don't deserve to say it - you don't deserve anything! Not your powers, or your name, or your fans' _adoration_." He shoves The Flash even harder, but this time The Flash does not budge. "You are a _sham_ ," Eobard howls, slamming his fists against The Flash's unyielding chest. It doesn't even feel like there are bones below to break, and he knows he is messing with the temper of a god but cannot stop himself, sobbing, shrieking, "you are a _coward!_ "

Slowly but inexorably, like one of those monstrosities still used to crush heavy machines, The Flash's arms come around him, closing him in, and Eobard can do nothing to escape them once he is caged but scream. The Flash tells him in a voice he can feel, "Love your father enough to live without him" before vanishing perfectly into the storm.

Furious, devastated, Eobard can only stand in the rain at scream, scream until his mother appears, running across the lawn towards him, shouting his name. She encloses him in her arms and he reflexively shoves her away, and unlike The Flash she stumbles under the blow, losing her footing. " _Eobard_!" Hapi roars, and Eobard drops to his knees beside their mother before Hapi shoves him back, insisting, "Do not _touch_ her."

"It's all right," their mother insists, and Eobard shakes and staggers to his feet, stepping away from his brother and mother. "It's all right, Eo."

"It's not," he gasps, reaching up for his throat again, remembering that electrifying pulse of energy The Flash shot into him, a rebound blow that only hinted at a much vaster ocean filled with killing power. "It's - I have to go."

He takes off at a run, and imagines as his lungs begin to burn what it would be like to run without tiring, to take fate into his own hands and save his father, to _save his father_ , and feels a hatred he cannot describe for the _hero_ who won't even try.

 _You liar_ , he thinks, coming to a halt miles away, side burning, breath heaving, so unlike the slow-moving creature before him. _You won't save him. But I will._

And he will do whatever it takes.

Keeping his distance, The Flash can only watch his enemy kneel in the grass and scream at the rain, and know there is nothing he can do to remove his pain.


End file.
